I covered his hands with mine. “How did it go?”
“They’re still processing.”
“But they believe that Arnel is as evil as we know him to be?” I asked cautiously.
His nostrils flared slightly, and he dipped his head. “It took your father watching everything on the looking glass three times, and me explaining it just as many, for him to accept that his twin brother betrayed him so deeply.” He ran a finger down my cheek, not flinching at my cool skin. “But your family believed me. Your father is angry,veryangry, although that’s probably the understatement of the century.”
“Thank the gods, but please don’t say anything more. I don’t want to knowwhatthey know. I can’t know.” My shoulders slumped in relief that they’d believed Kole about Arnel, but the impossibility of what I faced hit me all over again.
I peered upward at my fearsome, brutal, and devastatingly beautiful mate. “How will I ever see them again?” I didn’t dare clarify my fear more.
Kole’s eyes softened. “I think it’s okay for you to see them.”
“You do?”
“Come, my love. It’ll be all right.”
I was too afraid to ask more. Too afraid about everything.
Kole led me from my chambers and down the hall. Xaven was still there, but I didn’t know for how long. If my parents understood that Arnel had been the threat, and the threat was now over, the Imperial Warriors would be reassigned elsewhere.
I didn’t even want to consider what that meant for Kole. I couldn’t handle losing him too, on top of what my future held, especially if our time was limited while he remained fae. But I would love him no matter what. Fae, vamfeer, whatever he became, I would love him.
Just as he’d loved me.
I followed Kole around every turn, my hand clutched tightly around his.
It was only when he led me into my parents’ private sitting chambers, the very chambers where I’d met with them to ask for permission to leave the palace to scour the libraries, that I allowed myself a moment to hope that somehow everything would work out.
The second my parents saw me, my mother rushed forward. I braced myself, dreading what might come if she gave any indication of knowing I was a vampire.
But when she reached me, she didn’t say a word. She pulled me into a hug, holding me tightly, and in a choked voice said, “I’m so sorry, my darling. So very, very sorry that we didn’t protect you from him.”
I stood as stiff as a board in her arms, waiting to see if her remorse triggered anything, but since her words were a vague apology and she never mentioned Arnel by name, nothing happened.
Slowly, my anxiety lessened, and I relaxed in her arms. My father came up behind her and hugged both of us too. His aura was positively brimming with rage, but he didn’t say a word.
They both just held me.
Tears began to fill my eyes. Hot, vicious tears, and before I knew it, I was sobbing in their arms. My mother began to cry too, and perhaps it was all of the stress and worry that I’d been battling ever since learning of my true identity, but it all came out. I’d cried before, many times, but not like this.
I completely lost it.
Both of my parents muffled sobs against me, even my father, and through my mate bond, Kole’s tender empathy strummed toward me.
Full seasons of everything my parents and I had faced, all because of my magic, because of what I was—either a blessing or a curse, I still didn’t know which one—poured out of us.
And it was only a long while later, as we finally pulled apart, drying our tears, that my parents faced me red-eyed, but they didn’t say a word.
Relief made me slump. I had no idea if they knew I was a vampire or not, but before I could comment, the door to their private area opened behind me.
“Oh, sorry, are you busy?” Koraline’s voice reached my ears from the threshold. “I can come back.”
My mother dabbed at her eyes again. “No, it’s all right. Come in, darling.”
Koraline’s cautious aura lapped against my back, and when she reached us, I gave her a tentative smile.
Standing tall, my willowy blond sister placed her hands on her hips, looking regal and every bit the crown princess. Her eyebrows furrowed together, and she looked between the three of us. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
